


fleeting solace

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [9]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Demonic Possession, F/M, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Pregnancy Scares, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21595675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: After the branding over the magic golden seal, all three of the lovers are ready to have a little downtime, even if it's just in a cheap motel room.(Freddie & Ephram are at this point involved with a human woman, Ruby (Kate Beckinsale FC)
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673





	fleeting solace

**Author's Note:**

> > Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)  
> 

By the time the three of them got back to their room, it didn’t matter that the hotel wasn’t up to Freddie’s snuff so long as it was a place to lie down. Or at least it didn’t matter to Ephram. He didn’t even bother going to the washroom to clean up, choosing instead to flop down on his back so hard he bounced slightly on the mattress. “Should we get food?” Ephram asked the other two, who he assumed were wandering around. “That ice cream made me hungry.” He lifted his head, scowling at the stiff, congealed dark patch of blood on his jeans over his hip. “Fuck,” Ephram sighed. “I shoulda just come home nekkid.”  
  
“You should always come home naked, sweetheart,” Freddie said with a tired smile, taking off his own shirt and trousers and climbing up on the bed with Ephram, “-but that’s neither here nor there, now. Just take everything off, and throw it in the corner.” He wrinkled his nose.” I’m sure yours aren’t the first bloodstains this room has seen.”  
  
“Though if we could,” he went on, cuddling closer to his witch, “-I’d really like to see if we could all go an entire seven day stretch without an incident of bloodletting.”  
  
“That’d be a nice change of pace, don’t you think?”  
  
Ruby heard them talking, heard the mumbled, low sounds of their voices, but couldn’t bring herself to come to bed with them just yet, no matter how much her body ached to simply curl up between them and sleep for days. “Here…” she said absently, tossing a take out menu from the Chinese place down the street on the bed at Freddie’s feet. “I’m not hungry. I’m gonna… I’m gonna take a shower…”  
  
She moved off to the pink-tiled bathroom and slipped off her sweat-drenched dress, forgetting to shut the door. Holding her injured hand to her chest, she turned on the water as hot as it would go and moved to stand beneath it. The first sob she choked back, but the second one pushed past the clamp of her lips, and Ruby couldn’t help it anymore. The entirety of the night’s events, of the last fucking month, came slamming back into her. She sank to the shower floor, sobbing uncontrollably as the hot pounding water hopefully drowned out the sound of her tears.  
  
“That sounds like fuckin’ heaven,” Ephram agreed. He managed to take off everything except the jeans, not quite ready to peel the clotted cloth from his wounded skin, and curled an arm around Freddie. “I had enough of blood to last out a lifetime.” He turned his head to nuzzle against Freddie’s temple, hearing Ruby start to run the shower. “Mmmmm, sounds like our girl’s got the right idea.”  
  
The takeout menu was close but Ephram didn’t reach for it, still coming down from the adrenaline high of what they’d been through. “Freddie,” he said gently, stroking the fairy’s hair, the soft bristles stiff with dried sweat. “It ain’t that I can’t have kids at all. I do the magic thing when I’m with women.” He licked his lips, tasting the ghost of vanilla and chocolate there. “So the pregnancy scare Ruby had, it couldn’t be mine, is what I’m saying.”  
  
Freddie made a low appreciative sound in the back of his throat as Ephram nuzzled him, still feeling fragile after what they’d been through - shaky, and raw, and exhausted all the way down to his bones. “That makes two of us, love,” he agreed. And then he smiled when Ephram said Ruby had the right idea, making her way to the shower. “I don’t think I could stand under it without falling down,” the fairy sighed, “-but you go ahead, if you want to, darling. I’ll still be here when you get back. I might even be able to order your dinner in the meantime.”  
  
But when Ephram didn’t move right away - if he was even going to - Freddie just settled in beside him, his hand resting on the witch’s chest, listening to the soft honey-rumble of his voice. “You need to tell Ruby that,” he said quietly. “That it’s not impossible. Believe me, love, she needs to hear it…”  
  
“I’d have made a terrible father,” he said in a barely audible voice a moment later, “She’s better off that it was just a scare if there’s no chance it could have been yours.”  
  
Ruby sat in the floor of the shower for a few minutes, long enough to have a good, hard cry. The image of Ephram’s face, twisted in Anaxis’ visage, flashed behind her eyes. So did the memory of Freddie crippled to his knees with pain. Small and distant was the memory of Ephram’s secret, the one that had made her feel so foolish. It didn’t matter. It was over and done, she reminded herself. They needed to take care of Ephram tonight. One reason Ruby had come in here before getting in bed. She didn’t want anyone worrying over her. Not now. Best to let everything out where no one could see.  
  
Turning off the water, she stepped out and toweled off, taking a moment to use the hotel blowdryer to get most of the wet out of her hair. Her reflection looked terrible: pale skin, dark circles under eyes that were red and puffy, the purple/yellow bruises from the car accident she’d been in with Liz.  
  
It didn’t matter. All that mattered right now were the two men in the bed out there, waiting on her. She padded quietly out of the bathroom, still wrapped in her towel, and found a place on the bed behind Ephram, not speaking, just curling up behind him and burying her face in the warm, sweat-slicked skin at the nape of his neck. Ruby breathed him in, eyes closed, before reaching across his arm to brush her fingers against Freddie, needing to touch them both.  
  
“Hey there,” Ephram said, his drawl pulled out like cream taffy. He wasn’t sleepy, far from it; he was that particular state of wired where your mind raced around but your body didn’t want to move. He shifted on the bed, sliding one arm under Ruby so he could wrap it around her the way he was holding Freddie. “You splint up that finger yet, girl?” he asked, a slight scold in his voice. “Freddie and me decided no more bloodshed for a while, didn’t we Freddie.” Only half of the fairy’s face was visible, he was curled in so tight against Ephram, but even that half-expression got the point across.  
  
“Thank you for being there, rosebud,” Ephram said to Ruby, his black-and-bloody hand lazily cresting her clean smooth shoulder. “Both of you. I couldn’t have…” Ephram trailed off as his hand moved down Ruby’s back, under the towel, his brows drawing together at the feel of her pebbled skin there.  
  
Freddie reached out to trace gentle patterns on the soft skin of Ruby’s forearm where it lay across Ephram’s chest, catching the subtle tensing of Ephram’s body when he moved his hand down Ruby’s back.  
  
“Ruby and Elizabeth ran into a little trouble yesterday, sweetheart,” he explained gently, to spare Ruby having to, “Didn’t you, darling?”  
  
The fairy sighed. “It never rains but it pours with us, it seems.”  
  
“Ain’t nothin’. ’M alright,” she said brushing it off as usual. “Are y'all two okay?” she asked. “That was… I ain’t never been so scared in my whole life. For a second there I…” Ruby had thought she was going to lose both of them. If she had… well, she wouldn’t think about that.  
  
“It ain’t alright.” Ephram levered himself up from the bed, hobbling to the bathroom where they heard him hissing as he peeled his stuck-on jeans away from the second brand. He came limping back with a bottle of peroxide, a toothbrush and dental tape, and a wad of tissues, sitting on the bed cross-legged between them. “You shouldn’t be putting yourself in the way of somebody with a load of rat shot.”  
  
He took Freddie’s hand and held it on his knee, peering closely to inspect that black marks that kept moving fitfully along his palm, like magnetic filings. “Hopefully this don’t hurt no more,” Ephram said, cleaning the char and specks of blood and some other effluvium away. “It looks all broke up. The rune’s ruined.” Ephram leaned in and kissed Freddie, hotly at first and then more tenderly. “You were awful brave today,” he said, kissing the corner of his mouth as if he couldn’t get enough.

Sitting up himself, in order to give Ephram room, Freddie gave his bad hand over easily, watching as his witch inspected it, before carefully cleaning away the worst of the scorch and the mess. It stung, but only faintly - nothing compared to the pain Freddie had already endured tonight; the memory of that agony wouldn’t soon leave him - and the fairy just smiled softly through it, shaking his head. “It’s fine, love. Thank-you for tending to it.”  
  
Freddie realized, as he watched Ephram’s gentle ministrations, that his lover was right, and what had been a perfect mirror image of Ephram’s golden brand - had it been re-imagined by Spanish Inquisitors - was now just a broken pattern of scarification. He was still staring down at it - at the skittering black marks and ugly rending - wondering what exactly that meant for him now, when Ephram leaned in to kiss him. And Freddie kissed back; meeting Ephram’s hunger, and then following him into something gentler.  
  
His expression was soft as Ephram kissed the corner of his mouth, and he murmured, “I don’t think I can take credit for that, sweetheart. That was just me being selfish again; because losing you isn’t something I’m prepared to do.”  
  
He thought briefly of everything Iann had said, of all the pain the demon had drawn out of his memories and deepest insecurities, and then about the things Ephram had said when they’d been texting a few days before - about being able to let Freddie go - before pushing it down again.  
  
“You’ve been brave nearly every day of your life, darling,” he went on sincerely, his love for Ephram thick in his voice, “If I can’t manage an hour…then what good am I?”  
  
“Freddie here,” Ephram said to Ruby as he took her hand to set about making a toothbrush splint, “thinks he wouldn’t make a great father. Which I reckon is the fairy way, but I feel he wouldn’t be like that. Freddie’s the only fairy I ever met who likes to change and adapt.” He finished securing Ruby’s finger to the toothbrush. “I make myself sterile when I’m with women, Ruby Scarlett. I won’t have any children unless I plan for it.’  
  
Freddie opened his mouth again a moment later to protest Ephram’s assertion that he’d be able to adapt to parenthood if the situation called for it - because even if there was a chance that he could, the risk was still far too high - but he swallowed the words almost immediately. Ephram was explaining the circumstances of his sterility to Ruby, and Freddie knew that now was very much not the time to interrupt.  
  
So much so, that he felt like the worst kind of eavesdropper; and he did his best not to breathe, or move, any more than was strictly required.  
  
Ruby lay back, wincing as he straightened the black and blue ring finger of her hand. When he started to speak, telling her that there was no way there could ever have been a child, at least not of his blood, Ruby frowned and looked away, embarrassed for ever letting the thought get in her head in the first place. Her free hand moved across the space behind Ephram to touch Freddie, where he sat so still. “I think he would be too,” she said simply. They’d had this conversation between them, and knew the others’ feelings. He was a part of this conversation as well, and Ruby wanted to touch him, to feel him warm and safe and alive beside her.  
  
“I’m glad you’re tellin’ me,” she nodded, turning her attention back to Ephram. “I’m glad I know now. And… I”m so sorry, Ephram… Freddie. I… I never should’ve let Bella put the notion in my head. I was so scared and… and I didn’t know if I’d ever get you back after… after the magic left.” Her eyes flicked to Ephram, but slid away just as quickly. “I guess I thought… I guess I thought if I was… then…” Ruby swallowed, blinking back the wetness rising in her eyes. “Then it’d be somethin’ that would always love me, even if… even if something happened.” She didn’t have to go into detail; they would know what she meant. “A little person that was a part of me an’ one o’ you. Somethin’ that would be better’n all of us… but… but that had the best of us too.”  
  
Turning her head, she looked up at Ephram. “I know why you can’t. Or at least why you won’t.” Her fingers moved to trace the bloody and bruised skin at his hip, and she leaned up to press a kiss to his naked shoulder. “I’m at peace with that, and I’m glad you’re bein’ safe,” she murmured against his skin. “Besides, I got the best part o’ me right here.” Ruby lay her cheek against Ephram’s back, smiling at Freddie across the wide expanse of warm skin. “But since we ain’t got no secrets no more, if you ever did plan on it, I’d love to be the one. And I’d love any child we ever had more than my own life.” It went without saying, she knew, but this felt like a time and a place where things that should be said, would be. It was a safe place. A healing place. She reached for Freddie, pulling him forward to kiss him firmly, her face still pressed to Ephram’s back.  
  
“Now,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes. “You need to let us take care o’ you, hmm?” She turned to Ephram after giving Freddie another silent bit of conversation. “Do you want a shower?” she asked. “Tell us what you need, baby…”  
  
“I ain’t so very brave, Melly,” Ephram said in an affected Atlanta accent, then laughed at his own mis-quoting of Ashley Wilkes. “You know what, Freddie darlin, you’re too goddamn hard on yourself. Yeah, you got faults, but cowardice ain’t one of em. How the hell would the three of us even be here, taking this huge leap together, if any of us was less than brave?” He shook his head, finishing the splint on Ruby’s finger and kissing both of them in the first place his lips landed – Ruby’s cheekbone, Freddie’s earlobe – before saying with a pulpit air of being the final word on the subject: “We’re all of us brave, and strong, and worth being loved. Took me a long, long time to learn that for myself, so I reckon this is my chance to share that blessing with you two.”  
  
A scowl tugged Ephram’s face when Ruby mentioned Bellamy, but he set that aside forcefully. Best to put Bellamy and the trouble she could cause out of his mind. “It’s awright,” he said to Ruby as he relaxed back against Freddie, who was warm and solid and somehow still managed to smell sexy as hell. Taking her good hand, Ephram said, “Scarlett, whatever you thought wasn’t nothin’ to apologize for. But girl!” He shook her hand a little. “If you’re looking for something to love you forever, get a dog. No baby can handle that kind of pressure.”  
  
He waved away Ruby’s change of topic to himself, saying, “I just wanna lie here with you two and get some food in me. I need crab rangoon is what I need, and I need my Freddie to kiss me a whole lot, and I need my Ruby to cuddle up close.” Ephram tried to reach for the menu that was slowly sliding off the foot of the bed, but then hissed and sat back, retrieving the peroxide and toilet paper. “Looks like I ain’t on ordering duty,” he chuckled, even through the wince as he cleaned off the blood and soot of the brand.  
  
Soothed by tandem kisses and touches, and the promise of more to come - settling in once again to the belief that this, the three of them together, was a wellspring of affection and love that wouldn’t, and couldn’t, dry up, or be denied to him - Freddie curled an arm around Ephram, his hand resting low on his witch’s belly. He pressed a kiss to the curve of Ephram’s neck and shoulder, and smiled, happy just to listen to the soft Southern melody of his lovers’ voices as they spoke; to soak up their familiar, comforting presence.  
  
The idea of expanding their family though, even one day in the far and distant future, that was something he’d need to process on another night.  
  
The fairy laughed softly at Ephram’s list of needs, providing another soft, sucking kiss to the side of the witch’s neck as an act of good faith, before extricating himself carefully, murmuring, “I’ll order, love,” and leaning down to reach the menu, stroking Ruby’s leg on the way by.  
  
His own phone was lost on the floor somewhere, still in the pocket of his jeans where he’d dropped them, and once he’d settled back into place, he was forced to grab the ancient, Bakelite rotary monstrosity - which happened to be a putrid shade of green - off the nightstand, arranging it his lap with a sigh. “I hate this bloody place,” he muttered with a petulant pout as he dialed. Very, very slowly.  
  
“Ruby, love, what would you like?” Freddie asked, wrinkling his nose when he missed a number and had to start the whole process over again, “-because otherwise I’m just going to order everything that sounds good. And every single crab rangoon they’ve got.”  
  
“Surprise me,” she said, sighing sleepily, her chin resting on Ephram’s breastbone. Her hand slipped from caressing her witch’s ribs to trailing over the muscles of Freddie’s thighs. The hairs were coarse, but soft at the same time, she thought idly. Ephram’s heart beat strong and steady beneath her ear.  
  
“You’re very handsome when something irks you…” she said to Freddie, wrinkling her own nose at his somewhat humorous phone trouble. “Ain’t he?” This was directed at Ephram.  
  
“He’s handsome all the time,” Ephram said very solemnly, “but there’s for sure a certain specific kind of sexiness when he’s pissed. Reckon it’s all his Englishness coming out.” He laughed and reached over to poke Freddie’s hip. “You want me to do the dialing there, tiger?” Freddie had already finished dialing by then and just gave Ephram a look, making him laugh again and switch his attention to Freddie’s wings, catching one edge between his knuckles and stroking.  
  
“Get some kinda noodles too,” Ephram added, and tickled his other hand down the curve of Ruby’s breast. “I fuckin’ love noodles. I could eat just about any sorter noodles got put in front of me. Chinese or Italian or … uh … well, that’s all I know, ‘cept for casseroles and Kraft Dinner. Oh and egg noodles, we used to get those at the Dollar General and eat it with baloney and ketchup. Baloney fried in ketchup.” He trailed his fingers along Freddie’s wing, which seemed like it was swishing encouragingly in his touch. “Gotta introduce you to all my poor people food, Freddie honey. You can wash it down with champagne if you want.”  
  
He grinned at Ruby, his co-conspirator in any quest to introduce their posh fairy to the more simple, homegrown Southern ways of being. “I like when he calls us ‘love’,” he confided to her, even though Freddie was right there. “I like how careful he is with us, like we was them fancy jewel eggs that thieves like to thief. I like that look he gets after he’s been fucked good and proper, like there ain’t nowhere he’d rather be, and that fuckin’ hot mouth of his is all swollen from kisses.” Ephram nudged Ruby, encouraging her to add to his list.  
  
Freddie smiled as Ephram added noodles to his list of requests, waxing poetic for a moment about food that Freddie wasn’t sure could actually be counted as such. “I’d rather wash _you_ down with champagne, my darling,” he murmured with a little grin, just as the restaurant picked up on the other end of the line, forcing him to shift his focus. “Oh, yes, hello there… I’d like to place an order for delivery…”  
  
Ephram’s gentle stroke of his wing - not to mention Ruby’s hand on his thigh - made it a little difficult to focus on the task at hand, but he managed it, ordering more food than they could eat, before finally hanging up and ridding himself of the ninety-pound phone; glad to be able to give his lovers his undivided attention again, their conversation chasing away any hurt that had lingered after they’d left Mal Ojo.  
  
“I’ve held Faberge eggs, love,” he said, “-I’ve seen them, and stolen them, and even made one myself once - but they can’t compare to the two of you. They’re the loveliest things in the world, and you lot put them to shame…”  
  
He leaned in to kiss Ephram’s lips again, licking his way into his mouth, and then ducked down to do the same to Ruby. “I’m going to give you two the world,” he promised softly, “Just you wait.”  
  
The fairy’s eyes sparkled as he pulled back. “Even if you intend to make me eat things like casserole, and grits, and whatever the bloody hell ‘Kraft Dinner’ is.”  
  
Ruby grinned at Ephram’s order and the subsequent list of food he was used to eating, peeking up at him as she whuffled a bit, his hand tickling her. “Fried green tomatoes with cornbread muffins, mix it up with cubed steak and tomato gravy. No more poor Dollar Tree noodles. Less that’s what you want, of course,” she placated. It didn’t matter to her if they ate fried bologna sandwiches every day for the rest their lives, as long as they did it together.  
  
“I like it too,” she said to Ephram about Freddie. “There’s somethin’ about a ragin’ mad Brit that just gets me all slicked up mighty fast. Gotta be the accent.” Her voice turned more somber as she continued Ephram’s line of thought. “I love the way he looks at you when he’s movin’ inside you, like the whole world is just made up o’ you an’ him. The way he holds you so tight, comes to you so hard, just on the other side of hurt, but still so careful.” Ruby swallowed, listening as Freddie placed their order, at the utterly blissful domesticity of it. “The way his wings shiver when he’s angry or upset, the way the shiver is different when he likes something.” Her hand reached up to trail along his wing just above Ephram’s, emphasizing her point. “The quiet, fidgety way he gets when things aren’t like he wants, them lips turned down in a pout so’s you wanna kiss it away.”  
  
Ruby smiled wide, her hand curling gently over Freddie’s nape as he bent to kiss Ephram. Leaning up to meet him when it was her turn, she met him with a low-burning hunger, catching his lip gently between her teeth when he finally he pulled away. She resumed her place across Ephram’s chest. “Did you know…” she said mostly to Ephram, “that Faberge made 54 eggs for the Empress of Russia, Alexandra Fedorovna. Her husband commissioned them as Easter presents. They were made out of precious gems, diamond, pearls, gold and silver. Any and everything that was expensive and sparkled. Some even had little mechanisms that made them move. Then the Bolsheviks came along and ruined everythin’.” She looked between Freddie and Ephram as they gave her a look at the random history lesson. “What? Look, okay. I’ve had a lotta time to watch tv. It was a documentary on public television.” She glanced at Freddie. “Which one did you have? They’re practically priceless, ain’t they?”  
  
Ephram raised an amused eyebrow at Ruby’s going on about Faberge eggs, nudging Freddie with his elbow. “Them danged Bolsheviks–” he pronounced it bowl-SHEH-vicks, “–ruining all that fancy egg-makin’. Could you make another one, babe?” Ephram prodded Freddie’s ankle with his toes. “Or did it take a long time and a shit ton of jewels?” He looked thoughtful at the prospect. “Once I git my aviary back up to speed I’m gonna see what kinds of colours them birds can make their eggs. What with half of em being magical beasts it ain’t too far a reach.”

Beaming at Ruby’s impressively comprehensive history of Faberge, and idly playing with Ephram’s nipple, Freddie answered both their questions in turn. “I helped myself to the Apple Blossom egg from a private collector at the behest of a Crimean connection of mine,” he said, “Did your documentary show that one, darling? It’s green nephrite, with gold branches and little diamond and enamel blossoms? Liechtenstein claims to own it now, but they’re lying their arses off - I lifted the original in 2003.” He smiled, “That little beauty’s worth somewhere in the vicinity of about thirty million pounds. I could barely stand to give it up.”  
  
“So much so, that the next year I managed to convince one of the curators of the Royal Collection to give me a little private showing of the Mosaic egg - but I couldn’t quite manage a clean enough plan to take it home with me, so Her Majesty got to keep that one.”  
  
Smiling at his witch and pinching the same nipple he’d been teasing, Freddie grinned. “I suppose I could make another one though, if you’d like me to, love. It takes a little time; but not nearly so much for me as it would for a human forger - and I think I could do a much better job now than I did before. I was bored the first time - dreadfully, horribly bored - and so I got a little sloppy. But for you two - who actually matter - I’d make sure it was flawless.” He raised his eyebrows in surprise when Ephram mentioned his aviary, though. “I didn’t know you kept birds, love. What sort do you have?”  
  
The conversation might seem trivial to an outside eye, but Ephram loved this. The three of them just hanging out together, mussed up like a pile of languid cats, talking about the particular things that interested them and exchanging ideas, experiences, plans. It was a heady feeling, to have the luxury of plans. “God,” he said belatedly, “God, I fuckin’ love it when his wings shiver from him feeling something pleasurable. But then I love his wings any ol’ how.”  
  
Shifting on the bed, Ephram put Freddie on his belly in the middle, lifting one of his wings and scootching himself close so that he could lower the wing over himself. “I used to follow dragonflies when I was a tadpole,” Ephram murmured, nuzzling and stroking the one over him. “Old folks used to call em snake doctors. I wanted to watch when the green darners brought back food for snakes.” He grinned at Ruby across Freddie’s back. “And now we gone and caught ourselves the prettiest of all the winged creatures, huh?”  
  
To be petted and praised by his lovers was Freddie’s idea of Heaven on Earth, and he’d have been happy - despite his deep and abiding distaste for their current occupancy - to stay in this bed for the next fortnight, and on into the future, if he could only be guaranteed that it could continue. That the outside world would stay outside for a change, and he could just be allowed to enjoy the ones he loved - and to show them, as many times as he could manage, precisely how wonderful he thought they were in return.  
  
The fairy let himself be repositioned to allow Ephram to better fondle his wings, extending them fully across both of his lovers, sheltering them and letting out little moans of satisfaction as he was touched. He kissed Ephram’s hip, sliding an arm across Ruby’s middle. “Did you? Because in European lore, dragonflies are nearly always considered an agent of evil and nefarious purpose.” He chuckled. “A witch’s animal. Which is rather apt in my case; I’m a witch’s animal all the way down to my bones.”  
  
Freddie gave Ruby a cuddle. “We both are, aren’t we, darling?”  
  
Ephram nosed against Freddie’s wing, putting a warm hand to where it joined his broadly muscled back. “I think this is what I find the most appealing thing bout you being a fairy, sugarpie,” he said fondly. “You’re built so good and heavy and yet you got these gorgeous, delicate wings. I love it. That contrast.”  
  
Giving a little hungry moan at the pinch that Freddie delivered to his nipple, Ephram dreamily said, “Yeah, make us one, Freddie. With a pretty name like Apple Blossom.” The question about his aviary gave Ephram a slight, sad pause as he reached across Freddie to stroke Ruby’s hair soothingly, but he rallied and said, “I had one. Anaxis killed em all but I’m rebuilding. Mostly fancy birds and magic-type ones that I caught.” He sighed a little, but then reminded himself, “…gonna be better when we got the house, though. More room for me to make an aviary for the birds who ain’t troublemakers.”  
  
Any lingering melancholy was swept firmly away by the next place of conversation that they ended up, though, with Freddie declaring himself and Ruby as belonging to Ephram and Ruby herself agreeing wholeheartedly. “My two incredible loves,” Ephram murmured, touching them both wherever he could. “Well now, I might be rough on the things that belong to me, but I love em so hard it’s deep in my bones, too.”  
  
Freddie leaned in to steal a kiss from Ephram’s lips, letting out a little ‘mmm’ of satisfaction as their witch massaged his wing joint. “Do you?” he murmured when Ephram expressed fondness for his contrasts, and then he smiled, closing his eyes for a moment to just enjoy the touch. “Just wait’ll I take you flying, sweetheart. I can’t wait to see you…”  
  
The fairy noticed the pause and the bruised look in Ephram’s eyes when he asked about his birds, and when he heard what had happened to them Freddie immediately regretted his question, feeling as though he’d somehow invited Anaxis into bed with them. He rubbed Ephram’s chest gently in silent apology, before settling down between the two of them to be petted and caressed, swathed in the kind of affection he craved.  
  
With both of his lovers touching him like they were, Freddie sighed happily as he looked up at Ephram. “We can handle rough, darling,” he promised, his voice soft and steady, “So love us as hard as you can, yeah? As hard as you want to.”  
  
“Because we love you just as much.”  
  



End file.
